ar. Charles Darwin was the youngest of a
family of four, having an elder brother and two sisters. He was sent to
a day school at Shrewsbury in the year of his mother's death, 1817. At
this age he tells us that the passion for "collecting" which leads a man
to be a systematic naturalist, a virtuoso, or a miser, was very strong
in him, and was clearly innate, as none of his brothers or sisters had
this taste. A year later he was removed to the Shrewsbury grammar
school, where he profited little by the education in the dead languages
administered, and incurred (as even to-day would be the case in English
schools) the rebukes of the head-master Butler for "wasting his time"
upon such unprofitable subjects as natural history and chemistry, which
he pursued "out of school."

When Charles was sixteen his father sent him to Edinburgh to study
medicine, but after two sessions there he was removed and sent to
Cambridge (1828) with the intention that he should become a clergyman.
In 1831 he took his B. A. degree as what is called a "pass-man." In
those days the injurious system of competitive examinations had not laid
hold of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge as it has since, and
Darwin quietly took a pass degree whilst studying a variety of subjects
of interest to him, without a thought of excelling in an examination. He
was fond of all field sports, of dogs and horses, and also spent much
time in excursions, collecting and observing with Henslow the professor
of botany, and Sedgwick the celebrated geologist. An undergraduate
friend of those days has declared that "he was the most genial,
warm-hearted, generous and affectionate of friends; his sympathies were
with all that was good and true; he had a cordial hatred for everything
false, or vile, or cruel, or mean, or dishonorable. He was not only
great but pre-eminently good, and just and lovable."

Through Henslow and the sound advice of his uncle Josiah Wedgwood (the
son of the potter of Etruria) he accepted an offer to accompany Captain
Fitzroy as naturalist on H. M. S. Beagle, which was to make an extensive
surveying expedition. The voyage lasted from December 27th, 1831, to
October 2d, 1836. It was, Darwin himself says, "by far the most
important event in my life, and has determined my whole career." He had
great opportunities of making explorations on land whilst the ship was
engaged in her surveying work in various parts of the southern
hemisphere, and made extensi